Launching Arcana’s Beta Testnet- Quantum Ascent

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Arcana Network Blog

6 min readJul 12, 2022

We are happy to announce that Arcana Network’s beta testnet, Quantum Ascent, is now live on testnet.arcana.network.

If you were wondering what we were up to after our alpha testnet release (late 2021), we have several updates lined up as part of our beta release including new features in Auth SDK, Storage SDK and a more comprehensive Arcana Dashboard. Here’s a quick roundup of the updates made to the aforementioned components of our platform:

Auth SDK

User onboarding via passwordless login in addition to social authentication
Web wallet to securely store keys and sign transactions to the Arcana blockchain

Storage SDK

Complete user data privacy with full control in the hands of users to manage data access, share, revoke and change ownership of their data
Works with Arcana Auth SDK and also with third party wallets for signing transactions related to storage access operations
Associate metadata to a file and ultimately be able to create Private NFTs

Developer Dashboard

New improved UI with controls for configuring storage region, user onboarding experience, Arcana web wallet, and more
Add your dApp’s branding to Arcana components

In addition, we now have a more comprehensive set of documentation, tutorials and templates to get developers started quickly!

Our beta testnet launch takes us closer to the vision of helping developers build privacy-first applications for web3. We believe that any privacy-first dApps must provide a simple and easy user onboarding experience, a walk in the web3 park so to say, as seamless as using a web2 application. This is especially important in the case of web3 where gaining users and traction is a big challenge.

The Arcana platform will help dApp developers accomplish exactly that. We now have passwordless login in addition to social authentication. It offers users a hassle-free set of options to sign up on your dApp. What’s more, we also have our own Arcana web wallet that integrates beautifully into our platform, and does away with users having to set up wallets and manage them.

Without further ado, let’s move on to the highlights of our beta launch.

Highlights of the Quantum Ascent Beta Testnet

At Arcana, our emphasis and continuous endeavor is always on understanding the needs of the web3 community, and a strong drive to achieve product-market fit. We have translated these market insights into building SDKs and components that address some of the top requirements of developers as well as the users stepping into the web3 world.

Private NFT

Currently, NFTs minted on the Ethereum blockchain are publicly verifiable by anyone on the network. But in cases where high quality audio or rare artwork is being traded, the parties involved in the transaction may want the underlying file in the NFT to be encrypted and only viewable by the owner. That is exactly where private NFTs are useful. NFTs minted on the Arcana Network allow you to upload an encrypted file. Now this encrypted file is completely private, and can only be accessed by the owner of the NFT.

Private NFTs minted on the Arcana Network blockchain are based on the ERC-721 token standard. Read more about private NFTs in our official documentation here.

So why are we supporting private NFTs? Because we want to help the creator community and give them better infrastructure to trade digital products and services with as much privacy as possible.

Passwordless Login

Onboarding new users in web3 is often a long uphill journey because of wallets, complex passwords, and lengthy seed phrases. If tech savvy users of web2 struggle with using web3 apps due to the high barrier for entry, non-tech savvy users would find it even more difficult to enter into the web3 ecosystem. That’s when passwordless login and social authentication come to the rescue.

The Arcana platform has been supporting social auth since our alpha testnet release back in October, 2021. But with the beta testnet release, we have upped the game by supporting passwordless login. Users can simply provide their email address and authenticate themselves by following a link sent to their inbox. Find out how passwordless login works with Arcana here.

Web Wallet

Wallets are another key reason many users find it difficult to get started with web3. Setting up wallets, memorizing keys and storing them safely is a hurdle many face.

What if you had a wallet that you could access by means of passwordless login or social auth? No keys or seed phrases. Your users can either choose to go ahead with social auth or take the route of passwordless login. Either way, our web wallet provides a simple, no-nonsense interface for users to sign up on your dApp, keep track of transactions (signing and approving them), and more. Get more details on our web wallet here.

Region Specific Storage

The Arcana platform now offers region specific storage nodes, offering greater flexibility for devs to choose a geographical location that best suits their needs. During our alpha testnet last year, we only had storage nodes across India. This time around, we have 18 storage nodes deployed across three regions– Asia, Europe, and North America.

On the Arcana platform, whenever you create a new dApp, you get to choose a region from the various options available. That being said, you cannot change the region in which your dApp is deployed. As of now, you only get to choose in the initial setup time, as to which region you want to deploy your dApp.

What the Quantum Ascent Beta Testnet Means for Web3 Devs

Our beta testnet teases at a near future where it is possible to onboard users to your dApps without worrying about entry barriers such as wallets, keys, and seed phrases. And it is soon going to be possible for web3 devs to opt for decentralized storage that competes with centralized service providers such as Amazon and GCP. We’re building out the Arcana storage stack to reflect the choice architecture and dashboard of centralized storage providers, to help both web3 and web2 devs feel right at home. With added functionality such as region specific storage, web3 devs can easily count on decentralized storage for large-scale deployments and applications.

In summary, our beta testnet is going to help building dApps and onboarding users at scale simpler and hassle-free.

What the Quantum Ascent Beta Testnet Means for Users

Users now get to enjoy first-class privacy, without having to worry about dealing with the intricacies of web3. Don’t know how to use wallets? Just sign up with your Google account or enter your email address for passwordless login instead.

As a user, you will have fewer reasons stopping you from trying out various dApps. Entry barriers will become practically non-existent, and you get to enjoy the practicality of web2 with the privacy and security of web3.

Start Buidling

Visit www.testnet.arcana.network to get started. Alternatively, you can also check out our documentation or join our Discord channel.

Blogs detailing each major update around our beta testnet are going to be published in the coming few days. Sign up to our mailing list and stay tuned to our socials for regular updates. Links below.

About Arcana Network

Built for Ethereum and EVM-based chains, Arcana is the web3 infrastructure to easily onboard dApp users and enable user data privacy and ownership. Web3 developers use Arcana’s SDKs for a seamless, familiar user onboarding experience via social authentication and passwordless login. All user data is encrypted, secured with data access fully controlled by the users, and powered by blockchain.

Arcana has raised 2.7Mn USD from some of the leading investors and founders in the ecosystem such as Balaji Srinivasan, Founders of Polygon, Woodstock, Republic Crypto, and Digital Currency Group.

Watch out for Arcana’s upcoming Testnet and Mainnet in 2022.